Cousins In Love: An Alpha Bad Boy Romance (Book 3) (9 page)

Why didn't I call 911? Why didn't I report the assault? Why didn't I go to a hospital? Why did I keep so much cash in the house? All very valid questions with no logical answers, other than I was a blooming idiot.

And telling Roman? I'm petrified of pulling him into this. It's been a while now since he and the Kings have had a new client to
fix
something for, and it's so obvious that he's itching for a new challenge. Especially a confrontational one. If I told him about this, he'd definitely go looking for Shrek. He'd probably kill him or come very close to it.

It took me forever to talk him off the ledge when I first told him about everything that happened inside my apartment that night. I practically begged him not to interfere, and that was before we fell in love. Now that we're together, I don't think he'd listen to me
at
all. He'd just react.

Telling him about what just happened would only thwart all of my efforts to keep him out of it. Not to mention that he'd probably put me on some sort of lock down for "my own safety" which would drive me completely nuts. I won't be able to take a poop without him knowing. I can't live like that.
 

No ... telling him would definitely be the wrong move.

"Why not?" Sloan asks as if I've lost the last little bit of sense I had left. "What is the likelihood that some street thug, some around the way drug dealer, who knocked you out cold in your own fucking apartment, just happened to be grabbing a coffee at Java? That's pretty much our hang out. A Penn hangout. Smart college kids. Why would he be there if it didn't have anything to do with you or
he who will not be named
?"

Sloan refuses to mention my ex Ethan by name, since he dropped off the face of the planet yet again. She feels like he used her to find out information about me, and then dropped her like a hot potato once he was finished. He's on her ever-growing shit list of people whom she has "no words for." Especially because she had given him the benefit of the doubt.

"There's no way Shrek could have known that I was going to be there, Sloan. We just decided to go an hour ago. Not to mention that
he who will not be named
told me that he used to sell pills for the guy. Which means that he has to be familiar with the campus and campus hangouts. How else do you sell drugs to college students if you aren't familiar with the area that you're selling them in?"

I just answered my own question as to why someone like him would be at Java. If I think rationally about things, he's probably been there many times. Roman's told me a thousand times to
"follow your gut then follow the trail,"
because it usually leads to the truth.

"Okay, okay. Excellent point." She seems to finally exhale a bit. "So it could have been a total coincidence,
but
the fact remains that he knows exactly who you are. And while you definitely were covered up in the hoodie, there's no guarantee that he didn't notice you. I mean we look at people all the time when they come in and out of Java. It's just human nature to look at people when they come in and out of a small shop like that. I'm not trying to scare the shit out of you, Bitsy, but I'm just thinking that you should at least mention this to somebody. Somebody that could keep an eye out for the douchebag or at least on you."

"I hear you," I say.

And Sloan's right. Telling someone would be the smart thing to do. The obvious thing to do. But I know that person shouldn't be the police, and it definitely shouldn't be Roman, so that leaves me only one other choice right now.
 

Not to say a word.

CHAPTER SEVEN

ROMAN

The most beautiful woman in the fucking world is sitting butt naked, cross-legged, on the floor of my living room in front of my massive glass window that highlights the beauty of the Philadelphia city skyline. In her right hand, adorned with a single gold bracelet (which I gave her tonight) and petal pink nails, she's holding a glass of cabernet in a long-stemmed glass.
 

I watch with rapt anticipation as she motions to take a sip.
 

And then another.
 

She's so fucking sexy.
 

Her body is covered in a thin layer of sweat that gives her skin an intoxicating satiny finish and makes her glow like a Christmas bulb. That and the last orgasm I just gave her, have a lot to do with my girl's glow. She's breathtaking, and it makes my dick rise in appreciation, actually for the third time tonight.

If I didn't know better, I'd swear that every physical movement, every twist and turn her body makes in my presence seems very much like a deliberate and expert seduction of me.
 

The total consumption of me.
 

But I do know better. I know that my dear sweet
cousin
, my Elizabeth, doesn't have a deliberate bone in her body when it comes to her sexuality or the art of seduction. In her case it's effortless.
 

It just is.
 

Body and soul. She's mesmerizing inside and out, and I'm definitely one lucky son of a bitch. It's also one of the reasons why I can feel my insides winding and twisting like an angry, knotted ball of yarn right now. I don't want her to leave this apartment. This room. I don't ever want her to go. I hate the shit.

But every Friday night since the Glamazon got a promotion pushing even more drugs to overpaid doctors, I've let Elizabeth's pretty ass talk me into the rawest deal imaginable. She's been hanging out with the biggest pain in my ass for no good reason other than the fact that the two of them claim they need some "bonding" time.
 

What the fuck? I don't get it.
 

I'm either working to make some money, or I'm in between my girl's legs. End of story. I don't need to hang out with my boys just because. I'm not fourteen years old. That shit is dumb. Why would I pick getting drunk with a bunch of assholes over pussy? My pussy. A warm and wet one that strangles my cock, because it loves for me to be inside of it.
 

Or why would I watch a ball game and eat Buffalo wings with the King brothers, when we could be handling something for a client and billing them? Making some fucking money.
 

The shit just doesn't compute to me. It's either one or the other. Money or pussy. Not some fuzzy gray area where you don't get either. That just seems un-American.

But I'm not a woman, and I've come to the conclusion, since starting a relationship with Elizabeth, that not every decision she makes is for me to understand. She may actually want to spend time with the man hungry princess, because she truly enjoys spending time with her (although I realize I will never totally understand that relationship). Sometimes I think this is just another way that the Glamazon has chosen to fuck with me. I wouldn't put it past her shady ass.

But while it's imprinted on my fucked up DNA to suspect, to not trust, to always be on guard; I also need to try and trust that feeling deep in my gut that tells me that Elizabeth doesn't have any ulterior motives. That she's not like the usual club skanks I've spent many of my nights with. Temporary bed warmers. Scheming gold diggers.

Or like my mother.
 

She's nothing like that woman either.
 

Elizabeth isn't using me for sex, for money, or to fix her daddy issues. She isn't emotionally draining me like some needy leech. She doesn't need me to make her feel prettier or more important. She feels all of that on her own. She draws from her own well.
 

I've dealt with some crazy, fucked up women in my life, but that's not Elizabeth. It's not even remotely who she is. So that's why when she sat me down, after trying her damnedest to cook me the worst crab bake I've ever had, I couldn't resist complying. I couldn't say no to her or her inedible bribe. Or at least part of it.

I trust her.
 

As much as I can trust anyone.

Sure, I gave her a little shit for this Thursday "on," Friday "off" idea of hers. And I may have spanked her ass a little extra hard that night, but all in all, I gave her what she asked for. I always do. It's just that when I gave it to her, I didn't realize how much it was going to fuck with me in the coming weeks and months.

No wonder men run from commitment. From love. Especially men like me. This shit is hard. It definitely ain't easy. It's hard to control, and I'm used to making the rules. I want Elizabeth by my side every second of the day, and not because I don't trust her or because I don't trust all the assholes out there (which I sure as fuck don't), but because I like how I feel when I'm with her. I smile when she's with me. I relax. And I spend a great deal of time actually contemplating things that I can do to make sure that I hear that infectious laugh of hers again and again. All of that is scary territory for someone like me. I've never had a healthy relationship with a woman in my life. Well maybe Juliette and Jade, but they're different.

Other people in my life can see Elizabeth's effect on me too. In fact I might have to dock Jade's pay if she mentions one more time just how much of a pussy I become when Elizabeth is in the vicinity.
 

"Maybe we should talk about this when Elizabeth comes home. Since she'll hopefully be arriving with both of your balls in her handbag."

That's what the little devil said to me two days ago when I was giving her the third degree about a vendor issue at the club. I swear I'd fire Jade's ass some days if I didn't think the Kings would shoot me in the nuts for it, especially Cam.
 

Speaking of Cam, the dance between he and Jade is actually starting to get pretty sickening. I wish he'd just man the fuck up and finally claim the shrimp. I'm not entirely sure why he hasn't yet, nor will I ever probably know. It's not like the two of us talk about our innermost feelings over pints of ice cream, while brushing each other's hair. That's for pussies. Although that's what I'm pretty close to becoming any damn way.
 

"What are you looking at, Duchess?" I slide behind Elizabeth on the floor and sit directly behind her with my legs in a V formation. She slides back farther and leans into my embrace.

"The sunset. The lights. Everything is so beautiful from up here, Roman. I'll never get sick of it."

"Sounds like you may be ready to see this view every night," I suggest closely by her ear. "I know I am," I say referring to her beautiful ass and not the skyline. "You're dying to move in here with me aren't you?"

Very smooth, asshat.
 

Yeah, I'm definitely a butter soft punk. Actually asking a woman to move in with me? No really, that was more like begging. I think I'm even actually trying to pull some sort of badly executed Jedi mind trick on her, so that she'll think she came up with the idea on her own. I'm so ridiculous right now. I don't even recognize myself sometimes. This thing with Elizabeth is mind-bending. It's making me think things, say things, and do things that I normally would have never considered. Especially now that I've allowed Joseph to get in my head.

Lately we've been debating over that uber confident, smart-ass, dick she hired. Just his name alone, Blake, is enough to make me want to slap him. I think he was the name of a character on some nighttime soap my mother use to watch in the 80s. That's not a real man's name.

 
Being able to read people swiftly and accurately is a skill, and I've been paid a lot of money to be able to size people up quickly. I've been doing it for as long as I can remember. That's why I knew almost immediately upon meeting him that Blake wasn't a hustler or someone trying to take advantage of Elizabeth. That would have been too easy. That's someone I know how to handle. Unfortunately this guy is ten times worse.
 

First of all he's totally legit. Not a hustler or a scammer. Second, he's a pretty boy. A lot like that swimmer friend of Elizabeth's, Jagger, that used to have a hard on for her. No battle scars. No tats. No edges to him. Third, he's also smart. He uses words that I've never heard of half of the time, and he definitely knows his coder shit. Yet something about that squeaky clean motherfucker rubs me the wrong way.
 

On paper he's everything a woman like Elizabeth should be with. She bragged the other day to her girlfriend Tiny over the phone that he graduated from some university with honors and had worked for some major tech company in New York. Maybe she said all of that for Tiny's benefit, but she sounded majorly impressed.

He's also helping her create ideas for her business that are making her practically cream her panties. Ideas that I can't help her with. I know how to shake somebody down or pistol-whip their asses, but not how to code. I don't know shit about computers except for how to buy them. Cam kind of speaks his language, but according to him the work that they both do is very different. Blake helps Elizabeth "build code." Cam's specialty is "hacking code."
 

This Blake prick also knows a lot of shit. Useless but fascinating shit. He could probably go on that game show Jeopardy and win. He's traveled outside the United States several times, and not to the tourist traps where I've vacationed, but places that are less traveled. More "authentic" according to Elizabeth.